(a) Field
The subject matter disclosed generally relates to blade sharpening and more specifically to blade sharpening apparatuses and methods of using the same to produce sharpened skate blades.
(b) Related Prior Art
Blade sharpening devices for sharpening of all types of blades ranging from cutting blade and skating blades are known.
For example, cutting blade sharpening devices are known which have two or more pairs of grinding rollers or wheels located in mutually facing positions with their respective lateral grinding surfaces in adjacent relation. The blade is sharpened by being interposed between the two rollers with the blade edge contacting the grinding surfaces and causing the rollers to rotate about respective parallel axes with opposite directions of rotation.
A first drawback of such a solution consists in that rigidly held grinding rollers provide a blade having a profile, whose quality is not always acceptable. An additional drawback of these known solutions is that, during sharpening, the blade has to be pressed against the roller, and is thus heated, which may cause loss of hardness of the material, usually steel. Another drawback is that the top-to-bottom rotation of the grinding surfaces of the rollers causes burr build-up that forces frequent process stops for burr removal.
A further drawback is that prior art sharpening devices are mounted to fixed shells which set an operating position thereof, and introduction of the blades to be sharpened from both sharpening sides between the grinding members, for better sharpening, requires users to repeatedly move around the device for direct access to each side.
Another drawback is that, during blade sharpening, the user that holds the blades may inadvertently introduce them through an excessive distance between the grinding members, with the blade handles possibly contacting the latter and being damaged by their fast rotation, as soon as contact occurs.
Ice skates typically have a convex shape along a length of the skate blade and a concave shape across the width of the blade, defining two edges along the length of the blade. A skater can use either of these two edges in executing maneuvers on the ice surface. To maintain a desired blade configuration, a skate sharpening apparatus must be employed to re-grind the lower surface of the blade to create a groove along the length of the blade according to the preferred profile
Skate blades differ from one pair to another. In the prior art, such as Canadian Patent 2,309,222C, the operator of a skate sharpening machine is required to first dress a grinding wheel, which is usually carried out using a single point diamond dresser that is pivoted about an axis generally perpendicular to an axis of rotation of the grinding wheel. The single point diamond dresser intersects the outer periphery of the grinding wheel, removing material from the wheel to create and define a grinding wheel contour.
A drawback of such solution is that to have the desired contour applied to the skate blade, one must manually ensure that during the grinding process the centerline of the contour on a wheel coincides with the centerline of the blade along its full length. When each centerline is not carefully matched, an irregular groove will be created along the length of the blade, with one edge being higher/lower than the other. The contour formed on the grinding wheel may range from a convex arcuate surface with a radius typically in the range of 0.25 inch to 2 inches through to a triangular profile. Therefore, ice skate blade profiles have evolved into different profiles of blade between speed skating and ice dance, defender, goalie, attacker, short speed and long speed.
Accordingly it would be desirable to provide an ice skate blade sharpening machine that allows for sharpening multiple blades simultaneously allowing accurate alignment of profiles for example within a single player's pair, across multiple pairs for a user or simply to reduce time and cost in retail establishments offering blade sharpening services.